search

NCC-CNC / whattodo

Interactive management action prioritization application
https://NCC-CNC.github.io/whattodo
2 stars 2 forks source link

Redesign ideas #4

Closed jeffreyhanson closed 2 years ago

jeffreyhanson commented 2 years ago

@ricschuster and @josephrbennett, I've been thinking about the redesign for the What To Do app. I've been sketching out potential ideas for the new layout (see below), and I'd be interested to hear what you think? I've realized that there's a few things we talked about that won't be feasible given the deadline. So, it would be good to hear your input on this?

  1. Here's the general idea for layout. I was thinking it might be nice to be able to keep track of different solutions, but I'm not sure if this is really feasible: image

  2. I think one of the main challenges will be in creating widgets to set targets. Since we're moving away from absolute units to relative units for the underlying data, I think it might be helpful to frame the targets as "X number of sites with >= Y number of stars" (e.g. we could set a target for bird species A to ensure that at least 3 sites have at least 5 stars). I thought there might be some way we could simply set targets based on a single number of stars (e.g. "I want 5 stats for species A"), but I can't think of a way to implement this clearly (I don't think averages would make sense here).

  3. I think another one of hte main challenges will be in communicating how much a prioritization improves conservation of a particular feature. For example, I don't think it makes sense to report the average number of stars for a feature across multiple sites, and a total number of stars doesn't work either (e.g. what does 13 stars mean when all the inputs were between -5 and 5 stars). We can't really express a percentage either because it won't be clear what the denominator is. So, I suggest something like this where we do a stacked barchart/histogram (blue = current actions, yellow = prioritization):

image

Another option could be plotting Pareto frontiers -- but given that our deadline is end of April, I'm wary of biting off more than we can do.

  1. I think implementing the functionality to have both relative (e.g. stars) and absolute units (e.g. ha) introduces a lot of complication too. This is because I would effectively need to create 2 versions of all the widgets for setting targets and show results that are designed for relative and absolute units -- which is at least 3x the work because I also need to add in functionality for switching between the relative vs. absolute units. In order to meet the deadline, I think we need to commit to either absolute or relative units. What would you prefer?
ricschuster commented 2 years ago

Thanks very much for this Jeff!

Here's the general idea for layout. I was thinking it might be nice to be able to keep track of different solutions, but I'm not sure if this is really feasible:

I agree, it would be cool to be able to keep track of different solutions, but I do also worry about feasibility for this.

I was going to continue jotting things down here, but think it would be easier if we chatted about this. Will start an email thread to find a time.

Could you maybe have a think about how much time each of these components would take so we get a sense of that as well?

josephrbennett commented 2 years ago

1: looks good to me! The more it resembles tool 1, the better I think. This seems to be the case.

2: oh man, you're right - stars make it easier to specify values, but harder to set targets. I think you're right re # stars to set a target, but like you note, I fear that may make them squirrely. I also can't think of a better way, though.

Just to be clear as well: we are going with stars only for lite version, right? Honestly, I find setting ranges of values like %progress towards a goal (explicitly, or implicitly via multiple runs) better, but I know I'm not the target audience.

3: super related to 2, isn't it... sorry, I don't see how adding up stars for a given feature wouldn't work. If action A is -1, and action B and C are +2 and +3 respectively, then total is 4, and that is compared against some star goal? Sorry, I'm sure I"m missing something. My 2 cents would be no on the Pareto frontiers.

  1. Hmmm... sorry, responded before reading them all. I guess I've given my opinion above. I'm guessing some people will be aggravated by stars and will want to be able to quantify (which would ideally mean 2 versions, but great point re timing!). I wonder if % towards some goal may be an OK compromise and flexible solution? I feel like people can think OK in terms of percentages. NZ used a similar approach when setting things like benefit (0-100, rather than an explicit population goal).

This indeed tricky. Thank you very much for thinking it through so carefully, and for the amazing work you're doing on it!

jeffreyhanson commented 2 years ago

A while ago we revisited the star system and decided that it wouldn't really work (i.e. it wouldn't be clear exactly how optimization process handled the data, and would require a lot of custom user interface elements), so I'll close this issue now.